10 BULLETIN S62. U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



or statoblasts, of fresh-water Bryozoa. These are simple animal 

 organisms which grow in colonies resembling masses of jelly, attached 

 to submerged brush. Bits of hydroids (animals closely related to 

 the corals) were found in 2 stomachs; spiders, in 3; water mites 

 (Hydrachnidae), in 3; and the teeth or scales of small fish, in 2. 



BALDPATE. 



Mareai americana. 

 Plate II. 



Roughly speaking, the range of the baldpate, or American "widgeon, 

 includes practically all of North America. Its breeding range 

 extends from Lake Michigan and Hudson Bay west to the Pacific 

 Ocean and from Wisconsin, Colorado, and Oregon north to central 

 Alaska, the Mackenzie Valley, and Fort Churchill. It does not 

 breed commonly, however, east of Minnesota or south of North 

 Dakota. Along the Atlantic Coast it is common in migration as far 

 as Chesapeake Bay, and is only a straggler in New England and 

 eastern Canada, In winter it is found as far south as Florida, Cuba, 

 and Guatemala, and rarely in Costa Rica, Jamaica, Porto Rico, and 

 Trinidad. Many individuals winter as far north as southern British 

 Columbia, Utah, New Mexico, Illinois, and Chesapeake Bay, and a 

 few occasionally remain in southern New England. 



The adult baldpate is distinguished by the following characters: 

 There is a large area of white on the wings in front of the speculum, 

 which is black with a narrow green area near its front edge; the top 

 of the head, including the forehead, is white, producing the bald 

 appearance which gives the bird its name. Just below the "bald 

 spot," covering each side of the head from the eye back to and includ- 

 ing the nape of the neck, is a broad stripe of glossy green; below this 

 the head and neck are mottled gray, the upper breast and sides 

 pinkish brown, lower breast and belly white, under tail-coverts and 

 outer upper tail-coverts black; the back is finely barred with black 

 and gray or buff, and the rump is mostly white. The female lacks 

 the white crown and green headband; the back is more coarsely 

 mottled and streaked, and the white of the wings is less prominent. 



FOOD HABITS. 



The feeding habits of the baldpate are in general very similar to 

 those of the gadwall. In some respects the similarity of the results 

 obtained by computing the average percentages of certain elements 

 of food in a large number of stomachs of each species is quite remark- 

 able. For instance, the average proportion of pondweeds (Naiada- 

 ceae) found in the gadwall stomachs was 42.33 per cent, while in the 

 case of the baldpate it was 42.82 per cent. There are a few slight 

 differences in the food habits of the two species, however. The bald- 



